It's time for the chaps out there who commonly end their text messages to chums with an affectionate "x" to come out of the closet - because demonstrating your "metrotextuality" is apparently nothing to be ashamed of.
That's according to T-Mobile, which found that a shocking 22 per cent of blokes "regularly include a kiss on …

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My guess is that the vast majority of men only send their chum an x at the end of the text if they have got into the habit of sending an x on texts to the girlfriend, and accidentally added the same thing to other texts. Sounds very embarrassing to try to explain away!

Would piss me off

Even more from from someone I did not know well. Strong (precious?) emotions such as love, hate etc. should be reserved for the situations/people they actually apply to; not just bandied about willy-nilly.

Would you "kiss" them in public? No? Then why kiss them in a text then?

Got nothing to do with being manly or not, it's everything to do with saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Too many people say things they do not mean these days.

If you love someone - tell them. But if you go around telling everyone you love them (unless you're about 5) then it no longer carries any meaning, does it? It's just something you say. A verbal tick with no emotion behind it.

T-Mobile found out ?

How? How does a company "find" that sort of things? Was someone paid for that sort of analysis ? Was a machine programmed to count the "x"s at the end of texts ? Or was an expert reading them all? Is this the pink side of IT ?

ah, the sound of knees being jerked across the nation

@22% -- do you want to say 'gay'? Why not say it? Being coy and assuming 'fruity' and 'fashion victims' cover all gay men is, ya know, homophobic.

From the articles: 'collapse in SMS morality' -- why is the idea of a friendly X a 'collapse' of 'morality'? And all those accidental Xs -- geez, get lives.

X seems to have become a friendly 'bye bye' or salute of affection, not unlike a French cheek-kiss given to everyone, close friends or not. You chaps who protest here -- even the French Foreign Legion guys do the cheek-kiss thing, so get over yourselves.

Jamie Oliver effect?

Ms Bee

... and yet curiously, with the football reference there, there's nothing wrong in the heterosexual male mind with leaping into another man's arms and giving him a big sloppy kiss when he manages to kick a ball into a net?

i have

Why pick on them?

@Bassey

I don't understand the relevance of Physiologists to this article (Physiologist n. One who studies the branch of biology that deals with the internal workings of living things, including functions such as metabolism, respiration, and reproduction, rather than with their shape or structure).

Given your seemingly irrational desire to chuck them in the global flood I suggest you consult a Clinical Psychiatrist or Psychologist.

sports

yeah, like football's really manly isn't it.

i resent being implicated in that i have to be interested in a load of group showering, handbag waving, skirt and alice band wearing, premadona little ball chasers in order to be a fully fucktional member of the male side of the spiecies

anyway, no one i know sends an "X" at the end of a text to a mate, unless they are actually physically involved - no matter what set of chromosoms they have.

i call fail on this self publising consumerist "survey". and football.